Jesus was the master teacher,
often using things and events at hand to illustrate or explain spiritual
truths. He used loaves of bread to
explain how He alone is the Living Bread that satisfies our hunger. (Jn. 6:35)
Jesus used the ceremonial water in the Temple to declare, “if anyone is thirsty let him come to me and
drink” (Jn. 7:37 ) He used the fire of a
torch in the Temple to declare, “I am the light of the world”. (Jn. 8:12) In John 15 passage Jesus makes His final “I
Am” statement and uses a grapevine to illustrate to us the reality and vitality
of His relationship with believers that will be will be manifested in what
Jesus calls “fruit”.
Abide in me, and I in you. As the
branch cannot bear fruit by itself,
unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide
in me.
I am the vine; you are the branches.
Whoever abides in me and I in him,
he it is that bears much fruit,
for apart from me you can do
nothing. (John 15:4-5)
As
Christians we are in Christ and He is in us.
While there is an element of mystery in all this, there is also a very
practical side of it as well. The
natural result of this supernatural connection will be seen in what Jesus calls
“fruit”. Being in Christ is not a static
relationship. Jesus declared that our
fruitfulness is directly linked to our abiding in Him. Every genuine believer will bear fruit, but
it will vary in degree. The closer we
stay to Christ, the more fruit we will bear. One of the ways we draw closer to Christ is
though meeting with our church family for worship.
In John 15:10 Jesus gives us a
picture of what it looks like to abide in Jesus. “If you keep my commandments,
you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and
abide in his love.” To abide in
Jesus means to keep his commandments, and he tells us that keeping his
commandments means to loving God with all our hearts and souls and minds and
loving our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:37–39). We abide in Christ through a relationship of
love. We trust His love. We pray confident in His love. We obey because of His love. We worship in this love.
Worship is one of the primary means the Holy Spirit
uses to enable us to abide in the vine, to thrive in the life of Christ. Donald Whitney says worship is one of the
spiritual disciplines we use to “place ourselves in the path of God’s grace and seek him
as Bartimaeus and Zacchaeus placed themselves in Jesus’s path and sought him”. Whitney also
says, “There’s an element of worship and
Christianity that cannot be experienced in private worship or by watching
worship. There are some graces and
blessings that God gives only in ‘meeting together’ with other believers” (Spiritual Disciplines, 19 & 92).
So we see
that gathering together with you church family is an essential element to
abiding in Christ.
So how
can you prepare for worship between now and Sunday morning? I
offer you the following three points put forward by Jordan
Kauflin in his article How
Do You Prepare for Sunday?
Prepare to Receive
Every time we gather as a church, God will speak to us as his
word is preached, sung, read, and studied. Hearing from God is a weighty and glorious
thing. Just read Exodus 19–20. To see
God for who he is, to be overwhelmed by his greatness and holiness, to
experience his presence, to see his boundless love and mercy, to encounter what
should make our hearts tremble. Through Jesus, we can boldly come and receive (Hebrews 10:19–22),
but confidence does not equal casualness. Prepare by asking God to help you receive his
revelation with gratefulness and humility.
Prepare to Respond
When God reveals himself to us, things happen. Experiencing God leads us to respond (Isaiah 6:8). Rather than being a spectator or a passive
participant, our hearts are moved to worship because we have once again seen the
beauty, greatness, holiness, mercy, and love of our God. We sing to him, confess our sins, receive his
word preached, take communion, and give our finances, all in grateful response
to seeing who God is and what he has done for us in Jesus. Prepare for this Sunday by asking that God
would help you rightly respond to him.
Prepare to Edify Others
Our worship doesn’t stop when the singing ends, or the preacher
says, “Amen.” It continues as we greet,
encourage, serve, pray for, exhort, and care for one another. God chooses to use people to edify his body (1 Corinthians
14:26). You and me. Isn’t
that amazing? Do you come to church
expecting that God will use you? It
might be as you serve practically, it might be as you take two minutes to pray
for a friend, or greet a new person, or encourage a child. You have a part to
play. This Sunday, prepare for gathering
with your church family by asking God how he might use you to edify his church.
So how do you prepare to go to
church? This Sunday, come ready to
encounter God and respond to him in glad and grateful worship with your heart
and life.
I am praying for you and I look
forward to seeing you there!
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